A cleaner is a person who "cleans up" after crimes to physically erase their trace, or uses pressure or bribes to limit fallout from a criminal act. A fixer plays a similar but often less hands-on role, often minimizing bad publicity for public officials or media figures by quelling stories of their misadventures, but is also capable of heavier-handed tactics as necessary.

A cleaner may destroy or remove incriminating evidence at the scene of a crime. A popular figure in crime fiction, a cleaner may also be a contract killer who commits murder to "clean up" a situation. Cleaner is also a slang term for someone, usually a member of a crime organization or a covert government agency, who disposes of a corpse after a hit.

Legal crime scene cleanup is a legitimate industry, eliminating blood and other biohazardous materials such as dangerous chemicals used in an illegal drug lab[1] as permitted by responsible authorities.